Malaysia is becoming intolerant of its ethnic/religious minorities, no doubt, but not to the extent of ethnic cleansing/genocide. At least not yet.
Non-Malays/Muslims in Malaysia generally continue to own properties, do business, access higher education (both private and public, although less in the case of the latter) and enjoy gainful employment. They are also given Malaysian citizenship by birth and the Malaysian passport – among the top 10 most powerful – that they hold allows them to travel visa-free to more than 150 countries in the world. No non-Malay/Muslim neighbourhoods or houses have been torched and residents killed on the shocking scale as in Myanmar. The plight of the Rohingya people is far greater and beyond compare within Asean.
Najib Abdul Razak is corrupt, hypocritical and opportunistic, but to compare him to the military junta that has been persecuting the Myanmar people of all races and faiths over 60 years is a comparison too far.
I am a non-Malay/Muslim and I am not happy with the way Malaysia is going so far. Still, it does not blind me to the fact that the Rohingya are among the most oppressed and persecuted groups of people in the world today. I know, because I work with them in Malaysia and have been to northern Rakhine State to see it for myself.
Excellent commentary. I was almost giving up in despair with some of the comments posted by your fellow country-persons on the NM site. Let us hope Myanmar never goes down the path of Malaysia in terms of the “religious police”: ordinary police are bad enough at times but religious police……
Interesting article. Clearly members of the LGBT communities are less vulnerable in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam (yes, some people might not believe this) and Lao PDR than in Indonesia and Malaysia. It is good to have more articles like this one in NM.
Thank you for the interesting article. However, the following statement is potentially confusing: “Australia was absent this year, but is arguably the best known, most established football nation in ASEAN.” Although Football Federation Australia is a member of the ASEAN Football Federation, Australia (the country) is not a member of ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations).
The U.K National Archives Library well documented this event.Wikepedia is incomplete.The then British Colonial Government provided arms and ammunitions to these imported Bengali Muslims in the region to fight back incoming Japanese Occupation in Burma at the time but did not provide any arms to the native Arakanese Buddhists there.These imported Bengali Muslims there,instead of fighting back invading Japanese forces,they turned their weapons against the unarmed and defenseless native Arakanese Buddhists living there,massacring them viciously,burning their villages to ashes,wiping out the whole villages and towns,invading ,robbing and occupying their villages and towns. Maungdaw,Butheetaung,Yethetaung districts were Arakanese Buddhists towns before until then in 1942. Since then these districts have been occupied by 99% of these Bengali Muslims and their descendants. The Muslims distorted as usual the figures that they lost about was 30,000 which is questionable. The Yakhine or Arakanese Buddhists there
at the time were unarmed vs armed Bengali Muslims.The Arskanese aforementioned villages and towns were taken and occupied by these Bengali Muslims and they have been living there since.Maundaw Distric alone the Arakanese Buddhists death tolls was said to be about 30,000 at the time.
Excellant comments by Soe Win Han! You just hit right on the nail ! So true about these what you describes as Proffessional Begger Industry despirately seeking attention for oneself but more importantly seeking donations or fundings from infamous OIC. We are all aware the fact that Saudi is generously funding these liberal media as well as liberal elite academic universities,research centers etc,etc in the west and in US for their own hidden agenda( global jihadism and Wahabisms).What is happening now in Arskan State, Myanmar is part of the notorious British legacy left behind in Myanmar to the people of Myanmar by the British Colonial Government during their about 100 years of British occupation of Myanmar.See ” Hla Oo’s Blog: 1942 Buddhist Genocide in Maungdaw District” which was well documented in United Kingdom National Archives Library. About 400,000 to 700,000 ethnic Arakanese Buddhists were viciously massacred in Maungdaw and Butheetaung Districts and nearby Sittwe City in Arakan State by the illegal Bengali Muslims imported from then East India ( Chittagong) by the then British Colonial Government.This event happened in 1942 is a little known fact to the world now. That is the bonafide genocide and ethnic cleansing of Arakanese Buddhists in Arakan State in 1942 by the illegal Bengali Muslim migrants imported there in the region by the British Colonial Government at the time.
Janet makes some good points, well received. It is true, fascism is a historical moment, if somewhat fuzzy political ideology, but it is also a tendency which captures multiple social and cultural articulations, perhaps more akin to Eco’s Ur-Fascism (see for instance, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/); characteristics which indeed need to be seen using cultural frames of reference. I make no apologies for borrowing from certain French theorists, (and even as an anthropologist) find considerable comparative utility in the thinking of individuals such as Lefebvre, Foucault, Nora, and Deleuze (if readers would have read my academic articles over the past decade). Orwell was concerned with the implications of totalitarianism during war torn Europe; I believe his fascism (which he actually noted in 1944 as being emptied of meaning by its misuse: see http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc) was related to concerns about a particular set of beliefs which include absolute state control on society and the economy; a powerful and all-intrusive role for the military and the prevention of any kind of (effective) political opposition. (sound familiar?)
My (over-?) use of the term “F/fascism”, and its deleuzian ruminations, was simply for heuristic purposes; to draw attention to certain propensities, attitudes and values in present day Thailand and the single-purpose direction in which the junta is taking the Thai nation-state. Much of this, as we know, through intense ongoing propaganda leaning on monarchy. The amaat-junta alliance has now taken out all effective opposition in the name of protecting monarchy, and in continually harassing and silencing those who it cannot incarcerate or disappear. No one would know, if they solely read the compliant and controlled state media, and I wonder if academics (among others) really care what happens to real people inside. If readers have uncensored information, they can of course form their own conclusions based on facts, not intimation (–or even in academic point-scoring, mostly in relation to still [yes, what about the past ten years? yawn,,,] bagging Thaksin).
As red shirt leader Surachai Sae Dan once told me in a 2011 interview, while (F)ascism may be seen as a past defining historical moment in Thailand, in fact we are now seeing new modalities of (f)ascism in desperation by ruling elites/aristocracy and their bourgeoisie lackeys (“clients”) to hold back democracy, whatever the social, economic and political cost to the nation. Nothing it seems is above personal interests when it comes to maintaining the status quo ante.
Michael has, however, raised the interesting point of how can such European-derived terms, be translated into Thai ? This is not easy – there are HUGE socio-politico linguistic issues, if not barriers.
For example : Prem was paid a courtesy New Year’s call by Prayut, and many top brass. English language Thai media reported Prem as thanking Prayut for his “self-sacrifice”. Hang on – Prayut is a PAID public servant, on a salary. In English he has made NO ” self-sacrifice”. Is this a matter of literal language translation ? Or of political translation ? Difficult to translate Orwell into Thai ?
Fascism may have lost its meaning in Orwell’s view but my own usage follows the usual criterion of an authoritarian government but not just any authoritarian government, one that is jingoistic, deeply culturally chauvinistic with an impulse to purge from the body politic/society/territory entire categories of people (sometimes things) and that does so in the name of them being arbitrarily accorded an “enemy” status. Drawing on more historical forms I consider another defining factor the complete intolerance of dissenting views, in conjunction with a concomitant repression of labour. While fascism can and has and does take many and varied forms it is noteworthy that these criteria tend not to be present in non fascist milieus. I extend this definition to encompass the Neoliberal return to pre WW2 class power relations as deeply implicated in the current crisis of the middle class that is seeing fascism emerge in Europe, Nth America, Australia again, as a viable political force, just as the class power relations of the pre World War period fomented the crisis of the middle class that was the fight between fascism and socialism and I would point to ISIS as being emblematic of the fascist counter culture movement of our times (though Trump may yet claim the title). I think it important to point out the paucity of any effective socialistic counter culture movement to match either. So I think Orwell was observing (and bemoaning) the usual process of how the name of something dirty, dangerous, or the like becomes part of the vernacular, such as the word Vandal has its history, Philistines has its etc. and he didn’t stay around long enough to see the fruit of Reagan and Thatcher’s neoliberal project. But Fascism is here and it is in Thailand
By my definition Thailand is fascist has been for a long time and looks to remain so for a long time to come, irrespective of what you may have thought the case a year ago (almost to the day).
I think that Jim Taylor over played the significance of the fascist card and drew on theory to the expense of ethnographic data but that is a common criticism of post structuralism and it resonates with the Orwellian version of the word fascism as being more a pejorative word, in so much as Jim appeared to be name calling (aka came across quite tendentious). I think the topic of fascism will be still with us in a years time so see you all back here for that update.
Michael Wilson – what makes you think Orwell was correct, even in European terms, when he wrote that ? “Politics and The English Language” is a great polemic, and certainly illuminates SOME political use/
abuse of English. But it is NOT accurate historical analysis. Fascism – and Falangism – CAN be broadly, flexibly defined as a conceptual tool,, a heuristic device, for social scientists and historians, just as, eg. ” nationalism”, “communism”, liberalism”, “conservativism”, etc., can – surely ?
The government has vowed to “take action” against Burmese police officers seen abusing detainees in Arakan State after a video of the incident made the rounds online over the weekend.
We went through all this nonsense about whether or not the present junta can properly be called “fascist” or not almost one year ago to the day: http://www.newmandala.org/a-state-of-madness/
We get variations on a theme from Jim Taylor: “insidious creep” of fascism in December 2015; in April of 2016 we have Thailand “sliding further toward fascism”; and of course the recent abuse of post-structuralists Deleuze and Guattari invoking the “micro-fascisms” of the Thai state.
Falangists, Fascists, Nasty Bad Boogymen: the question should be directed at determining the value of applying these labels drawn from European history to the arguably very different situation here in Thailand.
As can be seen in the comments from the article linked above, Taylor is a propagandist who denies the reality of the Thaksin regime just as the present junta denies the reality of their own anti-democratic practice.
It is in this light that we should view Taylor’s misuse of the “fascist” label and his deliberate application of the “Big Lie” technique.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m with Orwell when he says:
“The word FASCISM has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable.””
To suggest otherwise in the Thai context is positively Orwellian.
I think we can call the Thai dictatorship “fascist”, if we mean a combination of militarism with violent authoritarianism and an emphasis on what people are to be served and obeyed, rather than laws. As in European fascism, crimes can be justified on the grounds that the victim was somehow disloyal to the values of the State. What laws there are, are justified as being the commands of a head of state or his underlings, rather than as the moral values of the people. They are usually written in such a flexible way as to accommodate the interests of anybody with influence in the state. All these social characteristics are what the authorities call “Thainess”. The main propaganda instrument of the Thai fascist state is the education system, which is a kind of military for children with reduced emphasis on academic matters. The resurgence of the Thai fascist state, after a period of somewhat greater respect for the rule of law and formal democratic institutions, coincides with the decline of US influence. It has combined with world economic recession to substantially reduce the amount of capital investment in Thailand, and bring economic hardship on the Thai people. Western investors look elsewhere if the price includes the increased and largely unknown cost of bidding against more established entities for permission to operate, and freedom from interference, from the lawless State. (The Chinese are more at home, but are going through their own bust at the moment.)
Though Thai fascism has much in common with fascist-era Europe, in Asia it is probably culturally closer to Imperial Japan. A major difference from both is that, with the odd tiny exception, the Thai fascist state is satisfied with its internationally established borders. That should not be surprising though, given that World War II brought an end to territorial ambition the world over. (Instead we have “régime change”.) The Thai military has long been satisfied with the conquest of its own people, which is its sole function.
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Race to the bottom
“…increasing number of people now calling it a genocide.”
Leave the rest alone, how many GEENOCIDES are required to increase the population from a few hundreds thousands to a few millions?
Race to the bottom
Malaysia is becoming intolerant of its ethnic/religious minorities, no doubt, but not to the extent of ethnic cleansing/genocide. At least not yet.
Non-Malays/Muslims in Malaysia generally continue to own properties, do business, access higher education (both private and public, although less in the case of the latter) and enjoy gainful employment. They are also given Malaysian citizenship by birth and the Malaysian passport – among the top 10 most powerful – that they hold allows them to travel visa-free to more than 150 countries in the world. No non-Malay/Muslim neighbourhoods or houses have been torched and residents killed on the shocking scale as in Myanmar. The plight of the Rohingya people is far greater and beyond compare within Asean.
Najib Abdul Razak is corrupt, hypocritical and opportunistic, but to compare him to the military junta that has been persecuting the Myanmar people of all races and faiths over 60 years is a comparison too far.
I am a non-Malay/Muslim and I am not happy with the way Malaysia is going so far. Still, it does not blind me to the fact that the Rohingya are among the most oppressed and persecuted groups of people in the world today. I know, because I work with them in Malaysia and have been to northern Rakhine State to see it for myself.
Race to the bottom
Excellent commentary. I was almost giving up in despair with some of the comments posted by your fellow country-persons on the NM site. Let us hope Myanmar never goes down the path of Malaysia in terms of the “religious police”: ordinary police are bad enough at times but religious police……
The criminalisation of LGBT people in Indonesia
Interesting article. Clearly members of the LGBT communities are less vulnerable in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam (yes, some people might not believe this) and Lao PDR than in Indonesia and Malaysia. It is good to have more articles like this one in NM.
A response to the Thai government
Pholachi “Billy” Rakchongcharoen
Decades of denial as Rohingya genocide continues
Baby boy washes ashore near Rohingya refugee camp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh2C26du2jk
Published on Jan 3, 2017
Face down in the mud, a baby boy lies still after being washed up on a river bank near a Rohingya refugee camp. CNN’s Saima Mohsin reports.
In the shadow of football giants
Thank you for the interesting article. However, the following statement is potentially confusing: “Australia was absent this year, but is arguably the best known, most established football nation in ASEAN.” Although Football Federation Australia is a member of the ASEAN Football Federation, Australia (the country) is not a member of ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations).
A response to the Thai government
Gen. Praying had caused ‘disappearances’ while PM according to Jim Taylor. Back up your claim JimT with names of the disappeared.
President Trump and Southeast Asia
In two weeks the idiot Trump will be POTUS and the countdown begins for the end of the world. Seriously!
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/william-perry-nuclear-weapons-proliferation-214604
Confronting genocide in Myanmar
The U.K National Archives Library well documented this event.Wikepedia is incomplete.The then British Colonial Government provided arms and ammunitions to these imported Bengali Muslims in the region to fight back incoming Japanese Occupation in Burma at the time but did not provide any arms to the native Arakanese Buddhists there.These imported Bengali Muslims there,instead of fighting back invading Japanese forces,they turned their weapons against the unarmed and defenseless native Arakanese Buddhists living there,massacring them viciously,burning their villages to ashes,wiping out the whole villages and towns,invading ,robbing and occupying their villages and towns. Maungdaw,Butheetaung,Yethetaung districts were Arakanese Buddhists towns before until then in 1942. Since then these districts have been occupied by 99% of these Bengali Muslims and their descendants. The Muslims distorted as usual the figures that they lost about was 30,000 which is questionable. The Yakhine or Arakanese Buddhists there
at the time were unarmed vs armed Bengali Muslims.The Arskanese aforementioned villages and towns were taken and occupied by these Bengali Muslims and they have been living there since.Maundaw Distric alone the Arakanese Buddhists death tolls was said to be about 30,000 at the time.
Confronting genocide in Myanmar
Great response by Soe Win Han ! Bravo !
Confronting genocide in Myanmar
Excellant comments by Soe Win Han! You just hit right on the nail ! So true about these what you describes as Proffessional Begger Industry despirately seeking attention for oneself but more importantly seeking donations or fundings from infamous OIC. We are all aware the fact that Saudi is generously funding these liberal media as well as liberal elite academic universities,research centers etc,etc in the west and in US for their own hidden agenda( global jihadism and Wahabisms).What is happening now in Arskan State, Myanmar is part of the notorious British legacy left behind in Myanmar to the people of Myanmar by the British Colonial Government during their about 100 years of British occupation of Myanmar.See ” Hla Oo’s Blog: 1942 Buddhist Genocide in Maungdaw District” which was well documented in United Kingdom National Archives Library. About 400,000 to 700,000 ethnic Arakanese Buddhists were viciously massacred in Maungdaw and Butheetaung Districts and nearby Sittwe City in Arakan State by the illegal Bengali Muslims imported from then East India ( Chittagong) by the then British Colonial Government.This event happened in 1942 is a little known fact to the world now. That is the bonafide genocide and ethnic cleansing of Arakanese Buddhists in Arakan State in 1942 by the illegal Bengali Muslim migrants imported there in the region by the British Colonial Government at the time.
A response to the Thai government
Janet makes some good points, well received. It is true, fascism is a historical moment, if somewhat fuzzy political ideology, but it is also a tendency which captures multiple social and cultural articulations, perhaps more akin to Eco’s Ur-Fascism (see for instance, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/); characteristics which indeed need to be seen using cultural frames of reference. I make no apologies for borrowing from certain French theorists, (and even as an anthropologist) find considerable comparative utility in the thinking of individuals such as Lefebvre, Foucault, Nora, and Deleuze (if readers would have read my academic articles over the past decade). Orwell was concerned with the implications of totalitarianism during war torn Europe; I believe his fascism (which he actually noted in 1944 as being emptied of meaning by its misuse: see http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc) was related to concerns about a particular set of beliefs which include absolute state control on society and the economy; a powerful and all-intrusive role for the military and the prevention of any kind of (effective) political opposition. (sound familiar?)
My (over-?) use of the term “F/fascism”, and its deleuzian ruminations, was simply for heuristic purposes; to draw attention to certain propensities, attitudes and values in present day Thailand and the single-purpose direction in which the junta is taking the Thai nation-state. Much of this, as we know, through intense ongoing propaganda leaning on monarchy. The amaat-junta alliance has now taken out all effective opposition in the name of protecting monarchy, and in continually harassing and silencing those who it cannot incarcerate or disappear. No one would know, if they solely read the compliant and controlled state media, and I wonder if academics (among others) really care what happens to real people inside. If readers have uncensored information, they can of course form their own conclusions based on facts, not intimation (–or even in academic point-scoring, mostly in relation to still [yes, what about the past ten years? yawn,,,] bagging Thaksin).
As red shirt leader Surachai Sae Dan once told me in a 2011 interview, while (F)ascism may be seen as a past defining historical moment in Thailand, in fact we are now seeing new modalities of (f)ascism in desperation by ruling elites/aristocracy and their bourgeoisie lackeys (“clients”) to hold back democracy, whatever the social, economic and political cost to the nation. Nothing it seems is above personal interests when it comes to maintaining the status quo ante.
A response to the Thai government
Michael has, however, raised the interesting point of how can such European-derived terms, be translated into Thai ? This is not easy – there are HUGE socio-politico linguistic issues, if not barriers.
For example : Prem was paid a courtesy New Year’s call by Prayut, and many top brass. English language Thai media reported Prem as thanking Prayut for his “self-sacrifice”. Hang on – Prayut is a PAID public servant, on a salary. In English he has made NO ” self-sacrifice”. Is this a matter of literal language translation ? Or of political translation ? Difficult to translate Orwell into Thai ?
A response to the Thai government
Fascism may have lost its meaning in Orwell’s view but my own usage follows the usual criterion of an authoritarian government but not just any authoritarian government, one that is jingoistic, deeply culturally chauvinistic with an impulse to purge from the body politic/society/territory entire categories of people (sometimes things) and that does so in the name of them being arbitrarily accorded an “enemy” status. Drawing on more historical forms I consider another defining factor the complete intolerance of dissenting views, in conjunction with a concomitant repression of labour. While fascism can and has and does take many and varied forms it is noteworthy that these criteria tend not to be present in non fascist milieus. I extend this definition to encompass the Neoliberal return to pre WW2 class power relations as deeply implicated in the current crisis of the middle class that is seeing fascism emerge in Europe, Nth America, Australia again, as a viable political force, just as the class power relations of the pre World War period fomented the crisis of the middle class that was the fight between fascism and socialism and I would point to ISIS as being emblematic of the fascist counter culture movement of our times (though Trump may yet claim the title). I think it important to point out the paucity of any effective socialistic counter culture movement to match either. So I think Orwell was observing (and bemoaning) the usual process of how the name of something dirty, dangerous, or the like becomes part of the vernacular, such as the word Vandal has its history, Philistines has its etc. and he didn’t stay around long enough to see the fruit of Reagan and Thatcher’s neoliberal project. But Fascism is here and it is in Thailand
By my definition Thailand is fascist has been for a long time and looks to remain so for a long time to come, irrespective of what you may have thought the case a year ago (almost to the day).
I think that Jim Taylor over played the significance of the fascist card and drew on theory to the expense of ethnographic data but that is a common criticism of post structuralism and it resonates with the Orwellian version of the word fascism as being more a pejorative word, in so much as Jim appeared to be name calling (aka came across quite tendentious). I think the topic of fascism will be still with us in a years time so see you all back here for that update.
A response to the Thai government
Michael Wilson – what makes you think Orwell was correct, even in European terms, when he wrote that ? “Politics and The English Language” is a great polemic, and certainly illuminates SOME political use/
abuse of English. But it is NOT accurate historical analysis. Fascism – and Falangism – CAN be broadly, flexibly defined as a conceptual tool,, a heuristic device, for social scientists and historians, just as, eg. ” nationalism”, “communism”, liberalism”, “conservativism”, etc., can – surely ?
Decades of denial as Rohingya genocide continues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzDqoeYygFc
2 January 2017
The government has vowed to “take action” against Burmese police officers seen abusing detainees in Arakan State after a video of the incident made the rounds online over the weekend.
http://www.dvb.no/news/govt-vows-action-video-police-abuse-arakan-emerges/73402
A response to the Thai government
The Thai military has long been satisfied with the conquest of its own people, which is its sole function.
Nail Head Hit
A response to the Thai government
We went through all this nonsense about whether or not the present junta can properly be called “fascist” or not almost one year ago to the day: http://www.newmandala.org/a-state-of-madness/
We get variations on a theme from Jim Taylor: “insidious creep” of fascism in December 2015; in April of 2016 we have Thailand “sliding further toward fascism”; and of course the recent abuse of post-structuralists Deleuze and Guattari invoking the “micro-fascisms” of the Thai state.
Falangists, Fascists, Nasty Bad Boogymen: the question should be directed at determining the value of applying these labels drawn from European history to the arguably very different situation here in Thailand.
As can be seen in the comments from the article linked above, Taylor is a propagandist who denies the reality of the Thaksin regime just as the present junta denies the reality of their own anti-democratic practice.
It is in this light that we should view Taylor’s misuse of the “fascist” label and his deliberate application of the “Big Lie” technique.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m with Orwell when he says:
“The word FASCISM has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable.””
To suggest otherwise in the Thai context is positively Orwellian.
A response to the Thai government
I think we can call the Thai dictatorship “fascist”, if we mean a combination of militarism with violent authoritarianism and an emphasis on what people are to be served and obeyed, rather than laws. As in European fascism, crimes can be justified on the grounds that the victim was somehow disloyal to the values of the State. What laws there are, are justified as being the commands of a head of state or his underlings, rather than as the moral values of the people. They are usually written in such a flexible way as to accommodate the interests of anybody with influence in the state. All these social characteristics are what the authorities call “Thainess”. The main propaganda instrument of the Thai fascist state is the education system, which is a kind of military for children with reduced emphasis on academic matters. The resurgence of the Thai fascist state, after a period of somewhat greater respect for the rule of law and formal democratic institutions, coincides with the decline of US influence. It has combined with world economic recession to substantially reduce the amount of capital investment in Thailand, and bring economic hardship on the Thai people. Western investors look elsewhere if the price includes the increased and largely unknown cost of bidding against more established entities for permission to operate, and freedom from interference, from the lawless State. (The Chinese are more at home, but are going through their own bust at the moment.)
Though Thai fascism has much in common with fascist-era Europe, in Asia it is probably culturally closer to Imperial Japan. A major difference from both is that, with the odd tiny exception, the Thai fascist state is satisfied with its internationally established borders. That should not be surprising though, given that World War II brought an end to territorial ambition the world over. (Instead we have “régime change”.) The Thai military has long been satisfied with the conquest of its own people, which is its sole function.